


Outbound Signal

by spectreshepard



Series: But I Remained [1]
Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Fluff and Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Omega is the perfect setting for everything, saying goodbye is never easy, this is entirely self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-13 02:08:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10504239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectreshepard/pseuds/spectreshepard
Summary: After meeting and working together on Arcturus Station, Shepard and Ryder form a friendship that might just be too much for one galaxy. Feelings get in the way, and when it's your 'last night on earth', you gotta make it count, right? M!Shep/M!Ryder with actual feelings and minor backstory.In short: the last conversation between Scott Ryder and Commander Caderyn Shepard.↳ "a story must end for another to begin. it is a simple concept, made infinitely complex by human hearts and minds."





	1. Chapter 1

Scott’s already waiting at the bar, ordering drinks, plying his way to a hefty discount with a well-placed smirk. Year after year, he’d come back, smiling that same smile. Shepard knew it well, from the tiniest of scars in the corner of his lip where it pulls at the divot below his cheek, to the way his eyes match his wicked grin. 

Shepard almost loved it. _Almost_.

“Drinks are on me.” Scott says when Shepard finally reaches him, a well worn humour to those words that brought warmth to Shepard’s aching bones. A much needed, familiar warmth. 

“About damn time.” Shepard replies smoothly, sidling up to the bar with sluggish steps, his exhaustion apparent. The Collectors were doing their best to put him back in the grave, and he’d half a mind to let them. Maybe. Once Scott had gone. Warm skin meets his own as Scott’s arm lies flush against his across the bar, and Shepard comes back to the present, no less free of the fog clouding his mind. He’d hoped Scott might help clear it. He usually did.

“Heh. I can’t get away with ruining your bar tab for years. Dying doesn’t get _you_ out of it either.” Scott raises an eyebrow as the bartender slides their glasses across the counter, and Scott’s omnitool hums quietly as he pays for them. Shepard smiles, the motion pulling at his skin, pulling at the metal holding his face together. It’s hard to ignore how synthetic he feels, harder still to ignore the gaping chasm of two wasted years between them. He hadn’t felt any shred of guilt until ‘Ryder’ passed his mind, and he remembered the man he’d left on Arcturus with a promise that he’d be back. 

Shepard keeps his promises. He made sure of that. He’d found Scott, tracked him down and sent an email his way with some wild hope that he still had a friend there. And Scott had never let him down, not even then. A reply, a hasty navpoint and a shouting match later, they could pretend the two years had never happened. Mostly.

Their meetups had become frequent, almost desperate; Shepard was a man who’d ceased to live in favour of survival, and Scott had his sights set two million light years away. It was clear that they were headed in different directions at the speed of light, on a collision course for a future neither of them wanted. Their foundations had become a black hole, and it was pulling their stars apart.

Neither would be the first to admit it.

“Dying doesn’t get me out of much, apparently. Bit of a shit deal, to be honest with you.” Shepard chuckles drily, taking a sip of his drink and relishing the burn of whiskey at the back of his throat. Scott always ordered whiskey, neat, and he’d turn the glass three times before he took the first sip. Shepard never asked why, he just enjoyed the fact that it was a certainty. 

Bright blue meets his gaze somewhere between the drink and Scott’s lips, and Shepard tears his eyes away for a brief moment, swallowing as the amber burn colours his throat. He scrunches his nose at the taste, setting the half-full tumbler back down on the bartop, tongue darting out to catch the last of the liquid on his chapped lips. Omega drowns out the worst of his thoughts, and he’s glad of it.

Scott deserved a better farewell than Shepard could give. That bothers him more than he lets on, and if even Scott notices, he doesn’t say a thing. 

_Enjoy his company, you asshole._ Shepard berates himself, realising that Scott’s been talking away in vacant company. Shepard catches the edge of his words, the familiar blue and grey shades he speaks in, more a comfort now than Scott would ever know. Shepard will have to be content with that.

“It’s so close, Cade. Andromeda.” Scott stares down at the bar, watching as the whiskey swirls around his glass when he turns it, another three times. 

“Are you ready to go?” Shepard knows his question is blunt, but he doesn’t hide his concern. It’s the same concern Scott had seen the first time they’d met, when Shepard dragged him from a fight and sat him down in his engineering bay with barely a word. 

Scott deliberates for a moment longer than Shepard would like. It’s hard enough saying goodbye, but knowing that Scott was so hesitant about such a journey was making his skin crawl. Shepard takes another sip from his drink, hoping to quell the worry that bubbled up in his chest. This was Scott’s choice. He’d support him. 

“No. I want to go, I know I do, but… one day, I just woke up and thought, _‘‘one more month, please’‘_ and I haven’t stopped.” Scott admits, quiet and timid, a far cry from his usual self. Shepard frowns, lower lip caught between his teeth as he listens.

“I don’t know if it’s real or not, you know? I don’t know if there’s something… keeping me here. Trying to.” 

Shepard can feel Scott’s eyes on him, burning a hole straight into his mind, where rusted gears push and pull and drive a bitter train of thought that Shepard can’t deny. _Don’t go_ , he wants to say. Shepard just clamps his lips tight, and lets his gaze wander away from Scott, only for a moment. Enough to string a sentence together, clear-headed and open-eyed. 

“And if there was?” Shepard replies, tentatively. His hands are hot, clasped tightly around the glass in his hand, and he feels the knot of tension bundling up in his back, setting him on edge. He was playing a dangerous card, and they both knew it.

And Scott just smiles that same old smile. The one with the bright eyes and the tiniest scar pulling at the corner of his lip. The one that Shepard has seen countless times over the years, and never got tired of it. 

“You could come with me.” Scott murmurs, eyes roving every inch of the bar that wasn’t where Shepard was sitting. Shepard smirks at his retaliation, a wicked curve in the dim light of Omega. 

“Yeah, and you could stay with me.” he retorts, taking a final sip of his drink, relishing the last of the whiskey as it burns its way down his throat again, and he sets the glass down.

Scott just laughs, low and warm, barely loud enough to be heard outside of their own little world, the one they’d so effortlessly built and swept away with a gesture; a final, dawning realization that this _is_ their final ‘goodnight’, whether they wanted it or not.

Neither of them did. 

“Come on. I have something for you.” Shepard straightens up, pushing himself away from the bar with an expectant glance at Scott.

“What, a sentimental parting gift? From _you_? Wow.” Scott snickers, finishing his drink quickly before following Shepard, and they make their way through the crowd, disappearing into Omega’s haze. 

* * *

Shepard takes the stairs two at a time, turning the corner onto a grate-covered walkway, above the din of the markets and protestors, Scott follows as best as he can.

”Where are we going?” Scott asks, curiosity piqued. Shepard just smiles at him and carries on, turning down another alleyway. They reach the end of this one, and finally stop. Shepard already has his omnitool up, unlocking a door to what seemed to be a block of apartments.

“You… actually have a place here? Or are we just breaking in? Either way–” Scott wonders out loud, before Shepard interrupts him.

”It’s a place to crash. I come here a lot, when the Normandy gets too… y’know. Strange.” Shepard admits, and it sates Scott’s curiosity long enough for them to get inside. The door slides shut behind them with a familiar mechanical whir, and Omega grows quiet. Scott can hear the gentle hum of the generators powering the lights, the quiet static of a radio that Shepard hadn’t turned off. The noises of a place that was lived in, and Scott feels all his worries slide off like nothing.

“I see what you mean. It’s… _quiet_.” Scott admits, feeling the need to speak in hushed tones as his eyes rove over the details of Shepard’s secluded life, the one nobody knew about.

Except him, now. That was humbling. Among other things.

Scott wanders a few steps in, taking in the details he could find. The kitchen, pans and plates stacked up and ready to be used. A pulled out chair at the makeshift dining table, slapped haphazardly between the kitchen and the living area. The coffee table covered in pieces of tech, scraps, a dismantled gun and empty mugs. The couch was worn, old, but comfortable looking, slightly at an angle, like Shepard had walked into it and pushed it out of joint. Scott can see every piece of life that Shepard lived in here, and it made him feel at home.

That was just the thing, wasn’t it? Shepard always felt like home. And here he was, saying goodbye. Scott blinks, feeling the burn at the corner of his eye, and he swallows around a lump in his throat that wasn’t there before.

“Hey, Scott. Over here. You wanna open your present or not?” Shepard’s voice cuts through the haze, and brings Scott hurtling back to the present. He glances over, finding Shepard standing by the kitchen counter. Shepard simply tilts his head, smirking. Scott tries to ignore the butterflies stirring up in his belly as he plucks up enough coherence to walk over.

Nearing the counter, he can’t help but break into a ridiculous smile. It’s a rifle, _the_ rifle Shepard had on him they day they met. Reworked and repainted, the soft blue casing, the N7 insignia, the mods that Shepard used to spend hours talking to him about. All there, in front of him.

_For_ him.

”You had eyes on her the day we met.” Shepard says, next to him. Scott lets out a breathless laugh of disbelief, a gentle hand reaching out to follow the groove along her casing, fingerpads running across the name emblazoned on the barrel. _Valkyrie._

“Cade… you can’t.” Scott’s words barely tumble out in coherent fashion, but Shepard catches them gently, a familiar hand resting on Scott’s shoulder a second after.

”I can. I _am_ , Scott. She’s all yours.”

“Cade–”

”Just promise me one thing, okay?” Shepard’s tone is weighted, and Scott feels the way his hand digs into his shoulder so slightly, that concerned edge still there. Only, Scott doesn’t notice that, so much as he does the warmth blossoming from his chest, he feels it brushing his cheeks and the tips of his ears, and he finds it very difficult to look anywhere but Shepard.

”Promise me, when you go- when you’re out there in Andromeda, that you use this for good reason. Once you pull that trigger, nothing’s coming back.” 

The sincerity almost stings, and Scott can’t quite place why. He swallows, his throat dry, and pulls at the thread unraveling from Shepard’s words. There’s a hidden intent to this, and he needs to know what it is.

“Why are you telling me this?”

For the first time, Shepard doesn’t have an immediate answer. There’s no wry smile, no half-witted quip, no rumbling laughter and a wink before he turns away and leaves Scott off-balance in his wake. None of that, not this time. 

“You are…. one _hell_ of a guy, Scott Ryder. One hell of a friend. And… and I want you to be happy. That’s all I want.” 

Scott’s words crumble as quickly as they come to mind, and he can’t do anything but stare like an absolute idiot. And, god, Shepard only stares right back at him, a new intensity burning in old familiar eyes, and the hand at Scott’s shoulder drifts. He’s painfully aware of the burning trail those fingers craft at the curve of his neck, expert in their lines, they way they draw over the groove above his collarbone and settle at the base of his neck, thumb resting on the bone.

A breath catches in Scott’s throat when Shepard stops. His heart hammers in his ribcage, beating out a visceral want that he’d ignored for long enough, and he’s tired of waiting. Tired of always being just one step behind. _Not tonight_ , he thinks. The whiskey burns in his belly, spurring confidence, or faking it entirely – Scott doesn’t care, and his hands curl around the collar of Shepard’s shirt, a wicked smile curving in the dim light. Shepard swallows thickly, lips parting on a half-smirk, waiting. 

“You done talking?” Scott can’t resist the playful jab, newfound confidence surging through him, driving Shepard until his back hits the wall. He closes the distance easily, the smell of whiskey and gunmetal filling the space left between them. 

It’s too bad Shepard can’t resist talking back. 

“Am I? I guess we won’t know until you shut me up–”

The words are swallowed as Scott’s lips meet Shepard’s in a blinding rush, a desperate, last-ditch collision course to a place neither of them had expected to see. There’s a desperate edge to the way they fumble for purchase, Scott pulling at Shepard’s shirt, teeth clashing as they shift to find this strange new balance. It’s the rush of a freefall, the moment of suspension before they have to hit the ground, and Scott can’t help but feel he’s sparked a live wire as every nerve flares. Shepard reacts, a lightning flash of blue that sends a jolt through his skin, a pleasant buzz that settles all over. _Biotics, right._ Scott remembers, and they part for a moment, bumping noses, quiet laughter bubbling over as the haze settles in. 

“Alright, you shut me up. Now what?” Shepard moves the hand at Scott’s collarbone, thumb traveling easily up the column of his neck to his chin, resting just over the smallest divot as Scott tilts his head up to look at him, properly. Those eyes are golden, Scott notices, and a fresh pang of uncertainty shatters against his ribcage where his heart should be pounding. 

“Last night on earth, huh?” Scott mumurs, voice low, unsteady with anticipation and an unspoken fear that he wouldn’t be able to say goodbye after this. Not that he really had much of a choice. 

“Just… enjoy it. Make it worthwhile.” Shepard doesn’t have such a waver to his voice, it spills with confidence, and Scott envies that. The words ring true in the spaces left between them, and Scott knows he’s already made his mind up. Shepard can see it too, and that devastating smile is back before Scott gets a word in. He laughs easily, worries abandoned for the night, and pushes away from Shepard, stepping back. A playful smirk betrays him before he can say anything else, and Shepard pushes himself off the wall, closing the gap with renewed urgency. The dim lights in the apartment barely guide the way to Shepard’s bedroom, the door half-open, but Scott knows what he wants, and he’s not about to let it go without something to remember. Andromeda can wait.

This time, it’s Scott who finds himself with his back against the wall, Shepard tantalizingly close, but teasing, playing the game that Scott had started. Fumbling hands find purchase on belt-loops and buckles, and before Shepard’s lips find his own again, he can’t resist stealing the last word right out from under him.

_“What are you waiting for?”_

* * *

They wake in a red bathed room, Omega’s dirty haze creeping in over bare skin and unspoken promises. Tangled limbs and twisted sheets are all that’s left of them, no words, no comfort, no early morning laughter or half-awake dreaming. It’s empty.

There’s nothing left but ‘goodbye’, and neither wants to say it. 

Shepard stirs first, a familiar burn in his muscles as he pulls himself out of bed, stomach churning with dread. He dresses slowly, delaying every moment he can until Scott stirs behind him, and says nothing either. The silence is impermeable, necessary, a safe-haven for both of them, too afraid to step outside and break their illusion. 

They don’t eat anything. It’s only the smell of bitter coffee that fills the kitchen as Scott examines the Valkyrie, sitting where they left her on the worktop last night. She was a beautiful gun, well-made, and Shepard’s tinkering had only made her better. There’s an unspeakable gratitude sitting deep in Scott’s chest, hurting when he thinks of it, but knowing that he has some small part of this to take to Andromeda was… helping. More than Shepard could know. 

Scott turns to find Shepard watching him intently, with a softness to his gaze that Scott remembers so clearly from the day they met. It’s bittersweet, and Scott doesn’t linger on the thought. Shepard simply sets his coffee mug down and stands, chair scraping across the floor.

“Time to go?” Shepard asks, the quietest he’s ever been, and Scott can only nod, clutching the Valkyrie a little too tightly. He says a silent farewell to their brief respite, the quiet little apartment, the hidden part of Shepard’s life that he’d been lucky enough to see. They step outside into Omega’s grim morning, and the noise returns; mindless chatter and street sellers hollering, the whir and grind of the air filters and vents, the clang of crates along the metal walkways. No words fall between them, just the same, reassuring silence. The same illusion.

Making their way through the morning crowds, they let the noise of the station fill their minds. A deal taking place down a side alley, a ransom being beaten out on a grate, two storeys up. A batarian street seller loads a pistol in plain view of his customers, and they easily skirt around a krogan bouncer, throwing last night’s riff raff back onto the street. Shepard doesn’t bat an eye, and Scott’s just glad of the distraction. 

Their quiet illusion follows them all the way to the docks, and it’s then that they finally turn to shatter it.

“Shepard…” Scott’s the first to speak, but Shepard just shakes his head, arms folded tight across his chest, and there’s no mistaking the faint red-rimmed tinge to his eyes. Scott feels his heart sink, half-mad at himself for ever letting it get this far. 

“I’m being selfish, I just don’t want you to say it.” Shepard admits candidly, a rawness to his voice that Scott wishes he couldn’t hear. 

“Cade. Come on. You’ve got a life to look forward to here, people who care about you.” Scott pushes, desperate to bring some of the old Shepard back, a least a smile. 

“I don’t need you to tell me that, Scott.” Shepard simply looks at him, head tilted slightly, an exhausted sigh rolling off his shoulders as he shakes off his sleep.

“Then what do you need me to tell you?”

The question is unexpected, and Shepard has to consider it for a moment. What does he want to hear? Nothing that Scott can tell him, he expects.

“I need you to tell me that you’re okay with this. That you want to go.”

Scott glances over at the shuttles, watching their drive cores splutter into life while he turns the words over in his mouth. They had started to take shape, started to mean something. Andromeda was his destination, and he needed to go.

“It’s what I want. My family are going, Cade, my life is going to be out there with them.” Scott finally admits, once the roar of the engines quietens down. 

That does it. Shepard finally cracks the faintest smile, and Scott feels a weight lifting off his chest, allowing him to suck in a shaking breath and return a smile of his own.

“Andromeda doesn’t know what’s coming.” Shepard quips after a moment, eyes finally meeting Scott’s own again. Scott laughs, quiet and a little uncertain, but it’s enough.

“Cade?” he asks, with one final request on his lips. 

“Mhm?”

“Can I just… ask one thing?” Scott tests the waters, but Shepard simply nods, the faint smile still there.

“If I’m taking the Valkyrie with me, I’m gonna make that promise to you. I won’t pull that trigger unless I need to, unless I mean to. But I need you to promise me something too.” 

Shepard almost rolls his eyes, the quirk of his lip threatening to form a proper smile, and Scott wishes he would.

“Alright. What is it?”

“Do what makes you happy. Find something, someone. I need to go out there and live my life, and I need you to do that too.” Scott sounds wise beyond his years for a fleeting moment, and Shepard feels so insignificant in the face of what Scott’s about to do, the places he’s about to go. It’s humbling and terrifying, and Shepard can barely fathom it.

But the request is fair enough, by all accounts. He’d asked him to do the same thing.

“I promise.” Shepard sighs, fixing Scott with a look that said it all. There was no turning back. No rewind. No fix for a code that simply ended. The story was ending, and a new one needed to begin.

It doesn’t make it any easier, but at least they can understand it. 

“Oh, and would you spare me a _fucking smile_ , damn it!?” Scott breathes, half-laughing, not quite. Shepard can’t help it then; he smiles golden, brighter than the rest of Omega’s morning, and Scott knows that this is what he’ll remember, 600 years from now. 

It would be enough.

Setting the rifle down gently against a railing, Scott pulls Shepard into a tight hug, one that betrayed years of friendship, years of unquestionable loyalty, years that they would simply have to be content with remembering. Scott takes in every detail, the way he still smells of whiskey and gunmetal, the way his biotics run over his skin in gentle ripples. Shepard relinquishes his hold, leans back to catch the last of those bright blue eyes, and smiles as best as he can when Scott lets go to pick up the Valkyrie, turning towards his way off the station.

“Goodbye, and thank you. For everything, Caderyn Shepard.” Scott says his name the way nobody else can, and Shepard will hold onto that memory for a long while.

“Scott Ryder, it’s been an honor to call you a friend. So, go on. Go and show Andromeda what it’s been missing. And make it worthwhile.”

* * *

> ** _for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths  
>                                                                of all the western stars, until I die_ **


	2. Addendum: The Places Inbetween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very short fill-in for a scene I wanted to include in the original, but ran out of steam on. I got inspired by a prompt fill over on my tumblr, and this was the result.

Shepard relishes the burn of cool air on hot skin, chest rising and falling heavily as he freefalls back down from his high, completely blind to anything and everything outside of this messy room in some back-street apartment on Omega.  


Scott was right here, and that was all that mattered. Not tomorrow, not the day after, not all the days that had come before; just the here and now. Just the way Scott is splayed out next to him, his own heavy breaths filling the air, ecstasy rolling off him in waves.  


“You good?” Shepard’s voice is hoarse, for good reason. Scott stirs next to him, half-laughing, half trying to get his breath back. Both of their gazes are drawn skywards, a place where they could linger without fear of reality catching up with them. They’d delay it for as long as they could.  


Scott pulls himself together long enough to reply, just as hoarse, but with a warm, honeyed edge to the words he can actually speak.  


“Oh, I’m good. Definitely good. Great. _Fantastic_.”  


Shepard huffs out a laugh, a mix of the comedown and sheer relief, and a strange kind of happiness he wasn’t sure how to feel. He almost rolls his eyes at his own lack of coherence, still barely able to make heads or tails of his own head, or his own heart, for that matter.  


“Is that an answer, or a review?”  


“Shut up.” Scott snorts, a half-formed laugh escaping him before the bed dips next to him and Shepard swims back into vision, hovering over him with his familiar smirk. Scott feels that ridiculous skitter of nerves again, drinking in those golden eyes. They never quite lose their charm.

“It’s about time you took a chance.” Shepard says simply, dangerously close, and Scott only returns the smirk with a quiet kind of confidence. They hang in silence for a moment, Scott taking the time to slowly run his fingers along Shepard’s bare skin, the lines of every muscle pulled like a bowstring, the grooves along his ribs. His path tracks up and up until his hands lie flat on his chest and he pushes the both of them back over, until Shepard hits the mattress and Scott straddles his waist with a wicked grin.

“Taking a chance on _you_ implies that this could have been a very bad idea.” Scott replies, tilting his head slightly as he looks down at Shepard, who watches him with bated breath.  


“And while I’m fond of bad ideas...” Scott runs his hands across Shepard’s abdomen, digging gently into every line of muscle, over his chest and past his shoulders where fingers curl into sheets, hands either side of Shepard’s head, “You’ve never been one.”  


Shepard rarely finds himself without a comeback, but Scott has made him trip over his own words more times than Shepard can begin to count. It frustrates him, how easily he slips up around a man like him, but he supposes that Scott more than makes up for it in other ways. So, he simply smiles up at him, meeting those blue eyes with a certainty of his own, and for the first time in a long while; Shepard finds himself entirely content with where he is.


End file.
